Woah

Yes, this really happened at a Chicago police station: A black suspect put antlers on his head, stuck out his tongue, and dropped to all fours (whether this was voluntary, we know not). Two cops posed with the suspect—hunting rifles in hand—and let someone photograph it.

The shockingly offensive* photo—which depicts the black man as an animal to be hunted—was recently released to The Chicago Sun-Times after a judge ruled that it should not be kept out of the press. It was probably taken between 1999 and 2003.

Neither of the two officers pictured in the photo have fared well since then. Jerome Finnigan, the man on the left, is currently serving 12 years in prison for "leading a crew of rogue cops in robberies, home invasions and other crimes," according to The Sun-Times. Timothy McDermott, the man on the right, was fired last year after federal prosecutors discovered the photo and handed it over to department officials. McDermott has appealed his termination.

The photograph becoming public record probably won't help his case. (No word yet on whether the police union will agree to handle his legal expenses.) In the meantime, his lawyer, Daniel Herbert, offered this defense:

In his closing arguments at the police board hearing, Herbert emphasized the lack of information about where and when the photo was taken — and the mystery surrounding the African-American man's identity.

"What's to say this individual wasn't performing at a Christmas pageant in the district and was dressed as a reindeer and had taken the reindeer suit off? Again, I don't mean to make preposterous arguments, but the charges in this case, they warrant that," he said.

The black man is believed to have been a drug suspect who was released without charges. His name is unknown.

*Update: I initially wrote that the photo was "shockingly racist." That may have been going too far, since we don't know very much about the context or officers' motivations. To be clear, there is no context that would make the photo okay, but "offensive" is probably a fairer description than "racist."

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“Neither of the two officers pictured in the photo have fared well since then. Jerome Finnigan, the man on the left, is currently serving 12 years in prison for “leading a crew of rogue cops in robberies, home invasions and other crimes,” according to The Sun-Times. Timothy McDermott, the man on the right, was fired last year after federal prosecutors discovered the photo and handed it over to department officials. McDermott has appealed his termination.”

Yeah, going out on a limb and saying this picture is pretty indicative of the sort of shitheads these cops generally are.

The photo is, of course, inappropriate. But I don’t see what’s “racist” about the photo. The fact that the guy with antlers happens to be black seems to have no relationship to what happened or how it happened; he might just as well have been white, Asian, or any other color.

“What’s to say this individual wasn’t performing at a Christmas pageant in the district and was dressed as a reindeer and had taken the reindeer suit off? Again, I don’t mean to make preposterous arguments, but the charges in this case, they warrant that,” he said.

I see the Chewbacca defense is being expertly administered.

I’m sure that the every action that arrested prisoner did whilst in custody was “voluntary”.

The CPD is probably the worst police department in the country. Remember the time some thug cop beat up a bartender so badly she was hospitalized and then other cops showed up to her bar to try and harass her into silence?

On Morning Joke, they were all aflutter about copcams. “Putting cameras on cops will fix everything!” No, it won’t, you blathering ninnies; not until cops can successfully be FIRED for their lawlessness.

That’s how cops see all of us. The CPD has a long and storied history of destroying the lives of white and black people alike. There are some real horror stories related to those people and their willingness to fuck people up seems entirely unrelated to what race they might happen to be.

And that’s exactly why it’s counterproductive to jump on the “thats racist!!!” pants-shitting bandwagon. Robby just needs to stop shitting his pants. He represents a bad trend among Reason staff of ceding ground to the cultural marxists.

I saw this as being typical of the mindset of far too many in law enforcement: “We count and the rest of you are just animals.” It simply reminds me of the t-shirts popular with some police and federal agents.

Examples:

Cops make good roommates…they’re used to taking out the trash

In God we trust, all others get searched

Law Enforcement…. Helping perps slip down stairs since 1766

Save the police time, beat yourself up

You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say will be misquoted and used against you

Several of the ones I’ve seen certainly do include various levels of racism, but they all have in common the implication that law enforcement personnel are above ordinary citizens and an ordinary citizen’s life isn’t very valuable.

There’s a prevailing sense of white cops hunting young black men, and this is almost certainly a CYA move by the authorities. They’re probably thinking, Who cares that the image originated over a decade before that meme got traction, it looks bad now. And sadly, that is probably the only reason the guy was canned, and not for the imagery of cops hunting *anyone*.

If the prevailing sense is that white cops hunt blacks, instead of cops hunting non-cops, the prevailing sense is pretty fucking senseless. If police brutality and predatory practices are only worth opposing when it fits a racist narrative, you’ll never fix or mitigate the rampant problem of police brutality.

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